Psychoactive Substances: Rolling UK Politics in The Neo-Con Era

http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/london-mayoral-election-2016/next-mayor

wouldn't worry.

Yes, good work Ken, you cunt.

If Khan loses and the expected wipeout takes place in Scotland then I think that'll be it for Corbyn. I don't believe he's remotely antisemitic but he has certainly created an environment where people like Ken feel they can shoot their mouths off with impunity. And if Khan loses it WILL be Ken's fault.

The possibility of voters just taking one look at the whole toxic mess and deciding just to not bother voting is reasonably high.

The ageing stoner dude looks nice enough.

Do you think Livingstone would be any more disciplined at this stage of his career under any other leader?

those odds say no fucking way he loses

Did Diane Abbott ever apologize or backpedal for saying Mao did more good than harm?

I'd like to think that stuff that Boris and other Tories said will be dredged back up and have more weight. I could see this sort of stuff becoming more of an arms race than it previously was.

Do you think Livingstone would be any more disciplined at this stage of his career under any other leader?

Of course not, but then he could just be dismissed by the leadership as a rent-a-gob media buffoon a la Galloway semi-detached semi-retired ex-MP with no power or influence in the Party, Corbyn gave him the opportunity to (once again) caper about in front of the nearest camera.

... capering about as an 'insider' with the ear of the leadership that is and not a washed up hasbeen.

I'd like to think that stuff that Boris and other Tories said will be dredged back up and have more weight. I could see this sort of stuff becoming more of an arms race than it previously was.

Tories don't care and perhaps tacitly approve of their candidates being racist assholes.

Anyway, the Labour Party (and any other party) would lose any such arms race against the Tories.

Goldsmith's campaign is dog-whistly to the point of explicit racism, it is how they roll.

Yeah it's the unconcealed 'well MY guys are in charge again and I'll say what I want' puffery that has led to this. Although obviously there are political reasons why people might choose to make the most out of his comments now.

He had actual responsibility under Blair and Brown and certainly seemed quieter, Evening Standard drunken meltdown nothwithstanding, certainly not this mad raving old uncle shouting at the TV figure.

If you go back to the first Boris campaign it was largely positive and optimistic, even if it was horseshit really it seems pretty obvious to me why 'NEW ROUTEMASTERS YAY!' might work better as a pitch to London voters than 'HE WILL BLOW YOU UP'.

Changing demographics have also meant that the outer boroughs, largely solid blue last time, have more lower-income residents this time around, which could well swing it, and the inner boroughs are stuffed with affluent middle-management liberals who would be rightly disgusted by the Goldsmith campaign.

This is amazing on so many levels and needs to be set down here for the record. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lolMtJfhUbc

wow.

Astonished, ASTONISHED by the polling day cock-up in Barnet, the Tory council which outsourced its services and based its business model upon Ryanair.

Outsourcing electoral services! Wonder if there will still be a Tory council in place there, this time tomorrow.

Rampant anti-Semitism in the Labour Party will take precedence in the minds of the voters of Barnet no doubt.

The joke legislation Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 to come into force on 26th May. Still don't really understand how poppers managed to get an exemption for apparently 'not acting on the brain'.

I'm glad that one guy who makes all the world's poppers got a reprieve

bloody hell, how many crosses did i just have to draw ..
2 on one card, 3 on another.
i nearly shouted out 'cat ran round it' afterwards.
given i have never heard of any of them i had to go tribal (postcode/party affiliation).

reports of low turnout giving me a squeaky bum moment atm

being honest, i was tempted to not bother,
but i decided that i needed to show an example to mk2, so i killed his ps3 groove and dragged him along.
kids gotta learn.

You'd have fun with an Irish election ballot then
http://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.2346967.1441884614!/image/image.jpg

ok, that's actually ridiculous.
like anyone give a top 10 rundown on a bunch of political hopeful unknowns.

Voted Sexton.

I think you misspelt 'glorious', mark.

Haha and fair fucks to whoever filled in that ballot, that's the ex-webmaster from my old (Dermot Desmond-ran) company for the Socialist Party at #1.

I think you misspelt 'glorious', mark.

fair play, i scrunched my eyebrows, and then i laughed.

https://londonelects.org.uk/im-voter/election-results/live-count-progress-2016?contest=23

In previous elections, the leader after 20% or so have been counted has been the eventual winner. Based on that, I'm calling in for Khan. And I for one welcome our new bus driver's son slightly resembling a tortoise that's lost its shell overlord.

LibDems in fourth place!

Khan would surely be ahead on second-preference votes as well?

You'd think. This one's done.

Looks like the counters in Bexley and Bromley really want to knock off early for Friday afternoon pints.

Gap likely to get bigger as the other constituencies catch up. Wonder if Khan can do it on first prefs?

In a move to make you guys feel old, Amber voted for the first time yesterday.

Jesus! Congrats Amber!

lol @ Havering and Redbridge, where Labour's Ivana Bortoletti is leading the Assembly vote, but Goldsmith is leading for Mayor. Stay classy, Essex borders.

Wait, Amber is a small child. That can't be right.

xposts

In a move to make you guys feel old, Amber voted for the first time yesterday.

0_o

Tories gained 16 seats in Scotland? The fuck's going on.

now the tories can be tartan tories too along with snp and labour

Unionists being honest for a change?

Also Ruth Davidson.

lots of "she's a genuinely nice person" stuff about Davidson, and while I think some effective opposition to the SNP is long overdue, a good person she is not.

Quite possibly starting with the fact that Ruth Davidson is more credible than Kezia Dugdale (tbf, that's quite a low bar) - ha xpost. They're making an argument on BBC right now that it's because she's disassociated the Scottish Conservatives from the national party and concentrated just on what they can do for Scotland.

Also the list vote is a load of old arse. The #bothvotesSNP thing has spectacularly backfired (I gave my second vote to the Greens, but I suspect a lot of people went SNP both.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/14471421.Iain_Macwhirter__How_to_handle_the_weird_science_of_Holyrood_list_vote/

Under the d'Hondt method, the number of votes a party wins on the regional list is divided by the number of constituency seats they have won plus one. This sounds like weird science, but it’s actually fairly simple. In Glasgow there are nine constituency seats and seven list seats up for grabs. Say the SNP win all nine constituency seats in Glasgow and also get 100,000 list votes. Their list votes will be divided, in the first round, by their nine seats plus one, meaning that they effectively have only 10,000 votes in the list. That may not be enough to win any list seats.

If Labour win no constituency seats in Glasgow, but get 80,000 votes on the list, they would end up possibly having all 7 of the list seats. Though, obviously, other parties like the Tories or Greens, might also win seats here. There are seven rounds of calculations on the list votes. It's estimated that if a party gets around six per cent of the list votes in any region it will get a seat. On recent polls, the independence-supporting Scottish Green Party could get around eight list seats across Scotland

As I understand it, the SNP got about 110,000 list votes in Glasgow, which wasn't enough to get them a single list seat due to taking all the constituency seats

(note, I read that earlier on Twitter, will see if I can back that up at all)

lots of "she's a genuinely nice person" stuff about Davidson, and while I think some effective opposition to the SNP is long overdue, a good person she is not.

Not about whether she's nice or not so much as impressive in a Sturgeonesque manner, if you like. Scotland's politics now seems so divorced from England's it's almost on its way to some sort of Ulster situation.

Go down the bottom here and click on regions:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2016/scotland/results

SNP had 41.7% of the regional vote and got 4 list MSPs. Tories had 22.9% and got 24.

A bit more awareness of how it works wouldn't have gone amiss.